This blog archives some of the key events from IWM’s Build The Truce project (2009-2012). You can’t add comments and queries but you may still contact IWM staff to find out about new projects and related activity. IWM’s website is a good place to start – especially sections on learning and interpretation and national and international projects.

Build The Truce looked at contemporary conflict from a new perspective, and covered a host of activities across IWM sites. It gave IWM staff and audiences a chance to look at moments of truce, how they happen and what can be achieved while a truce holds. Over three years of managing the project, it was my privilege and pleasure to work with dozens of schools, universities, NGOs and charities, and their support and efforts in helping IWM develop new programmes and resources were outstanding. Because of their help, we were able to:

Collect interviews with people who had lived and worked in conflict zones, including medics and peacemakers from Iraq, Northern Ireland, El Salvador and Kosovo. They were used online and in exhibitions and have been added to IWM’s collections for the future.

Host open days for International Day of Peace, where IWM galleries offered a space for visitors to meet staff and volunteers from aid agencies, finding out more about their work in the aftermath of war. In addition, visitors took part in film screenings, talks and other activities looking at truce and conflict from different perspectives.

Deliver seminars for teachers, museum staff and others who wanted to find out more about conflict resolution, and how to carry on the discussion in their own workplaces with students and visitors.

Create new learning sessions for schools at IWM Duxford, IWM London and IWM North, helped by teachers and students who took part in early stages and told us how they wanted to learn about modern conflict and its aftermath.  These sessions cover the cause and consequences of conflict, examine and practise conflict resolution skills, and encourage discussion and debate. Resources include an android app, looking at conflict cycles and the events or factors which might reduce or heighten conflict, currently used in IWM North sessions and handling objects for IWM Duxford’s booked sessions.

Work with Makewaves, a web-based schools community, to create an online forum. Here we were able to listen to students’ views and give them access to material from conferences, interviews and museum collections. Schools marked Refugee Week, Remembrance and Peace Day – students created their own work for these anniversaries and began their own online discussions about these themes. The Makewaves site still holds this material and you can find out more in the IWM areas.

Create films using sound clips from eyewitness interviews, video footage and photos for displays in IWM North and IWM London. These were part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, which gave us an Inspire mark as part of its Olympic Truce programme. At IWM North the Truce Big Picture Show is now part of their permanent programme of daily, 360-degree audio-visual projects in the Main Exhibition Space. Additional interview material can be found in the Your History workstations at IWM North.

Develop new visitor programmes at IWM North and IWM London, taking inspiration from the idea of truce. Free events included new storytelling sessions for families, film screenings, drama performances and gallery tours, plus talks and panel discussions involving key NGOS and conflict resolution agencies. Many of these activities are now part of ongoing, exciting visitor programmes at museum branches.

Find new partners for future projects, through great relationships with organisations that have expert knowledge, first-hand experience, unique resources and amazing ideas about conflict and conflict resolution. These will help IWM continue to develop its programmes and collections, making sure they reflect 21st century audiences, their interests and concerns.

I want to thank everyone who took part in any of Build The Truce’s programmes, discussions, events, interviews or exhibitions. Whether you are one of the hundreds of visitors who came to see Build The Truce displays, students who came to one of our learning sessions, families who came to Build The Truce storytelling; if you shared your experiences for our archive, asked questions at a panel discussion, or represented your organisation at our open days; if you shared photos, film, ideas and expertise, or took part in any of the many fascinating conversations I have had over the last three years – thank you. Build The Truce was made up of all these contributions, which will carry on influencing IWM’s programmes for the future.

Special thanks to:

• Conciliation Resources
• International Alert
• International Committee of the Red Cross
• Mines Advisory Group
• MSF
• Red Cross UK
• Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, University of Manchester

IWM North suffers from an identity crisis.  As a museum with the words Imperial and War in the title, some people think that we must be about military campaigns, dates and victories.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Yes we do display tanks and guns and bombs and all the paraphernalia of warfare and conflict, but our message is far more challenging and complex.

At Imperial War Museums we believe it is important to communicate the causes, course and consequences of modern conflict in a courageous and authoritative way that is relevant to our audiences and empathetic with people’s experiences.  Our reason being – whether we recognise it or not – war has shaped all our lives and continues to do so – some more personally and tragically than others.

As part of the International Day of Peace, IWM North has just held a minute’s silence, followed by the showing of one of our more recent ‘immersive’ film experiences, on Build the Truce.  Using the first hand, eye-witness accounts of non-governmental organisational workers and social workers in five areas around the globe torn apart by conflict (El Salvador, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Northern Ireland and Kosovo), this ten minute film asks What happens when the guns stop firing?  Of course, you would be forgiven for thinking – it’s peace…but unfortunately it’s not as simple as that.

Problems don’t just end when the truce begins:  in Kosovo – as one of our witnesses points out – there were many ceasefires, while in Iraq even after the fighting had ended things just went from bad to worse.  The issue is, how do you reintegrate warring factions into a coherent society?  After conflict, people have lost everything: homes, jobs, schools…all those things that strengthen the fabric of society and which we perhaps take for granted…are gone.  In Sierra Leone the Truce did not bring prosperity and didn’t solve the problem.  The ongoing insecurity just led to continuing extreme violence, while in El Salvador it was noted that when the Truce was established, the violence didn’t go away, it changed into social violence.

Graham Boxer, IWM North Director

The other issue is that such conflicts can last for years and young people especially don’t know anything else – it’s natural to them.  As an Iraqi citizen, now living and working in Manchester,  said, Children have grown up with war – it’s all they know.  How can I tell them it’s good to have peace?  They don’t know what peace looks like. This witness concluded that it needs a lot of people to make this point before any change can be made.  But this isn’t easy to achieve either.  For many people who have suffered at first hand the trauma, grief and inhumanity of conflict, there isn’t any peace – even if the guns have stopped firing.  How do you forget, how do you reconcile the past experiences with some semblance of normality?  It’s not over and it’s not the end.  On the contrary, it’s just the beginning of a painful process of reconciliation, reintegration and rebuilding.  As a senior doctor in Kosovo stated – and this would be confirmed by all our witnesses –  some of the hardest acts of building the truce are those of forgiveness and tolerance.

Great to see our friends (and neighbours!)  at the London Boroughs Faiths Network making International Day of Peace an occasion of celebration and invitation. We’re delighted that a short film about this initiative, Peace on Friday – Mosques and the International Day of Peace, will be screened at IWM London on Satueday 22 September. There’ll also be a chance to find out more about the network and their work across London’s communities. Check Peace Day event listings a few blogs ago for more details.

We’re delighted – and privileged – to host a panel discussion on neutrality in NGO and peacemaking activities at IWM London on 22 September, as part of our International Peace Day programme.

Starting in Neutral: What does neutrality matter in 21st century humanitarian conflict response? brings together speakers from MSF, Conciliation Resources, the International Committee of the Red Cross and International Alert in a discussion covering the meaning,  problems and perceptions around neutrality in conflict and post-conflict zones. Dr Tim Jacoby, Senior Lecturer in Conflict Studies and co-founder of the Humanitarian & Conflict Response Institute at the University of Manchester, will chair what promises to be a lively and fascinating panel discussion. Hope you can join us in the Cinema at 5pm, prepared with any questions for our panellists:

Andy Carl, Executive Director: Conciliation Resources, led the development of programme work in Fiji, Bougainville/Papua New Guinea, northern Uganda, Somaliland and Sri Lanka. Andy previously worked for International Alert (1989–94) on peace initiatives in southern Africa, Europe, Liberia, the Philippines, Colombia, Iraqi-Kurdistan and elsewhere.

Phil Vernon, Director of Programmes: International Alert joined Alert in 2004, having worked on development, humanitarian and peacebuilding programmes for NGOs in different parts of Africa since 1985. Initially a forester by training, living in Rwanda from 1992-94 inspired an interest in peace. He is a member of the Forum on Corporate Responsibility of mining company BHP Billiton, and a trustee of UK-based development NGO BuildAfrica.

Jeroen Jansen: Head of Programmes Unit MSF,  took up his current role in 2010. He had worked in the field for MSF from 2002 to 2008 in Afghanistan, Liberia, Nigeria, Darfur, Khartoum and South Sudan. He left MSF  to attend the American University in Cairo and obtaining a masters in International Human Rights Law. In 2010 Jansen joined MSF’s London office as head of the Programmes Unit.

Sean Maguire: Spokesperson, International Committee of the Red Cross, broadcasts regularly to explain the ICRC’s policies and operations in zones of conflict. He builds relationships with political, military and civil society stakeholders to generate support for Red Cross humanitarian work in situations of violence. Sean spent 20 years as a correspondent, bureau chief and news editor for Reuters before joining the ICRC in late 2011.

Help us mark the International Day of Peace 2012 – join us at IWM London or IWM North for a programme of film screenings, talks and performances linked to conflict, truce and conflict resolution.

We’ll welcome organisations who work during or after war and conflict, including MSF, International Alert, the British Red Cross, the International Committee of the Red Cross and Conciliation Resources over 21, 22 and 22 September. Find out more about what they do, where, and why in this free event programme. Pick up your Peace Day schedule on the day, but keep an eye out for these highlights of the IWML HIGHLIGHTS and IWMNorth HIGHLIGHTS.

We’ll post more info about the organisations taking part over the next week too. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Have you visited IWM North or IWM London lately? Had a chance to look at Build The Truce’s  film, touchscreens or Big Picture Show?

Let us know what you think of Build the Truce displays by completing this quick questionnaire - we’d love to hear your thoughts and it will help us plan future projects.

This pen signed the extension of the Armistice in 1919 (IWM Collections)

Build The Truce displays at IWM North and IWM London are based on interviews with real people. They have lived and worked in the aftermath of violent conflict from Kosovo and Northern Ireland to Iraq, El Salvador,  and Sierra Leone. Civilians, ex-paramilitaries, peace builders, medics and researchers share their stories and their views on  truce, and  its potential to unite – or divide.

In these original interview clips, they introduce themselves and their experiences of life as war comes to an end – and new struggles for peace begin.

You can watch more material from these interviews at the Build The Truce displays in IWM London and in IWM North, and we will keep adding  more links to Truce interviewees between now and the end of the month.

During the Olympic and Paralympic Games, all the nations taking part agree to support global truce. The host nation shows support for the Truce through practical and cultural activities  (see  June news) and here are some of the ways the UK  is making this happen for 2012:

In Barbados the British High Commission and a local NGO hosted a football match bringing together rival gangs from underprivileged areas -  neutral ground for  young people who would not go into each other’s areas for fear of violent conflict.

In Quito, Ecuador the British Embassy is sponsoring children’s rights projects, and supporting children’s participation to reduce their chances turning to social violence

In Sri Lanka, the UK High Commission hosted a sports day inspired by the Paralympics for participants with disabilities. Soldiers, ex- combatants and civilians, many of them former enemies in conflict, took part in the event.

In the Philippines the UK’s Foreign & Commonwealth Office worked alongside local people to organise a coaching and football tournament, bringing together Christian and Muslim communities.

In Colombia 8 young sportspeople visited London 2012 as Olympic Truce ambassadors

The British High Commission in Sierra Leone hosted a basketball tournament between rival groups, calling the event ‘Hoops for Peace’.

I found this last item especially interesting. It may not sound like a huge achievement, but the ‘rival groups’ in Sierra Leone have a background of extremely violent civil war and armed conflict. I knew very little about this country and its conflict situation until we interviewed  Courtny Edwards, who worked with a medical aid agency just after the war ended in Sierra Leone. Some of her interview features in our displays at IWM North and IWM London. In case you miss them, I’ll upload links to clips from Courtny’s interview next week – more Truce films coming up over August and September as we head towards International Day of Peace in September.

It’s easy to be cynical about these kinds of projects. But for the people taking part – perhaps especially the young people born into conflict or post-conflict zones – it means a day, or maybe just 90 minutes, to play the game and celebrate. Its time out from conflict. It sounds a bit like truce to me.

Visitors to IWM North have been watching the new Big Picture Show for Build the Truce – a 360 degree projection of images and footage across the 27 foot high walls of the Main Exhibition Space.

Interviews from eyewitnesses to conflict and peace in Kosovo, Iraq, Sierra Leone, El Salvador and Northern Ireland form the soundtrack for this amazing audio visual display.

As Build the Truce goes public with a gallery installation at IWM London and a Big Picture Show at IWM North for July 20th, we’ll be updating the blog regularly so please give us a steer on what you want to know or questions you’d like to ask about IWM’s response to the Olympic Truce.

Meanwhile, here’s our top story from June.

We welcomed special guests to IWM London on June 6.

Lord Bates at IWML's Build the Truce gallery

Lord Michael Bates and Conrad Bailey (Head of Conflict Reduction at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office) joined members of the London Borough Faiths Network at IWM London for a visit to the Build the Truce display. Great to see the gallery so full of visitors – and so many people listening to the eyewitness interview material we’ve collected. Following the viewing, our guests joined me and the BTT co-curator, Dr Tim Jacoby, in a discussion on the Olympic Truce.

Lord Bates walked from Greece to London via historic sites of conflict to promote the Olympic truce. He talked to the group with real enthusiasm about his efforts to raise the public profile of the Truce. Find out about the Walk for Truce here.

Conrad Bailey is Chair of the Olympic Truce Stakeholders Group. This group are working to make sure the Olympic Truce 2012 has a real and lasting legacy – interesting info here. Speaking about the Truce, Conrad described local, national and international initiatives for truce and conflict resolution.

Lord Bates, Conrad Bailey, Catriona Robertson and colleagues from LBFN with co-cruator Dr Tim Jacoby

Catriona Robertson of London Boroughs Faiths Network introduced her colleagues and the community reconciliation projects they are leading in the UK and elsewhere.

Dr Jacoby spoke about his involvement with Build the Truce and the work of the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Unit at the University of Manchester, which he co-founded.

The Olympic Truce gives us a chance to raise awareness about resolving conflict in our local and international communities. Hopefully we can keep this going as we look towards the International Day of Peace in September – we’ll keep you updated about IWM’s events and about people and organisations working towards keeping an Olympic Truce.

Aung San Suu Kyi delivering her Nobel Lecture at the Oslo City Hall, 16 June 2012. Copyright © Nobel Media AB 2012 Produced by NRK

The Nobel Prize for Peace was awarded to Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991. 21 years later she was able to accept the award in person and delivered her acceptance speech in Oslo last weekend.
I watched this on Saturday. After working on the Build the Truce project for nearly 3 years I have met with, and heard the stories of, a lot of people with different experiences of conflict. Some of these experiences were of violent, armed conflict and war. Others were related to  undeclared, underlying conflict – situations of apparent ‘peace’ where people still lived with fear, threat and injustice every day. So this is the part of Aung San Suu Kyi’s speech that stood out for me personally:

‘War is not the only arena where peace is done to death. Wherever suffering is ignored, there will be the seeds of conflict, for suffering degrades and embitters and enrages.’

If you haven’t already, you can watch or read the speech here.

I directed the Build the Truce film now installed at IWM London, having worked on the project for several months with curators Catherine Roberts at IWM and Dr Tim Jacoby (University of Manchester). Becoming involved in a project like this can be daunting. There’s masses of research to do, new expressions to learn and experts to talk to. The learning curve is steep but once the research has started you wonder how on earth you went through your life not thinking about this stuff before.

For example, the civil war in Sierra Leone was a conflict I was aware of in the nineties, but I didn’t know how it started, why it kept going, the atrocities that were taking place. Since then, I have learnt of Charles Taylor’s and Liberia’s involvement, the unthinkably cruel amputations carried out on men, women and children, the drugged child soldiers, the family massacres and the destroyed homes and buildings. When the truce was brought about members of the militia, and civilians, had to return to their places of residence, or were moved to new areas where no one knew each others’ backgrounds. This I found very affecting. The rather inspiring aid worker Courtny Edwards says in the Build the Truce film: ‘In Sierra Leone, it felt almost like it was peaceful because people didn’t talk about it. Everything was still very strained, you didn’t know if you would be speaking to somebody who was ex-militia, an ex-rebel or somebody whose family was killed. You didn’t want to bring up that tension because they had to be now working side by side.

I spent a few days filming in Kosovo for Build the Truce. Even though the war finished 12 years ago, the devastation, both physical and psychological, is still evident. Even during the five days I spent there, there were four separate politically-driven incidents of trouble. An afternoon visit to Mitrovica Bridge was enough to see how KFOR (NATO Kosovo Force) were dealing with the problems of reintegration and peacekeeping. Mitrovica is a northern Kosovan city split down the middle by a river. The north of the city is home mostly to Serbs, the south to Albanian Kosovans. The bridge connecting the two parts of the city is a hot spot of trouble between the two groups. The bridge has been barricaded down the middle by a huge pile of concrete and rubble. Only small thin paths each side of the rubble let people pass, one at a time under the watchful eye of armed KFOR troops. When I was researching Mitrovica Bridge I was looking at Google images of the signs at either end of the bridge stating ‘malicious and provocative behaviour shall be repressed immediately’. On arrival at the bridge I tried to find those signs, but I couldn’t find them anywhere. They certainly weren’t standing where they were in those internet photographs. As I was getting ready to leave the bridge I spotted one of the signs bent and buckled, scarred and pierced lying trampled on the ground. It’s easy to not think about how conflicts end. Of course I’ve vaguely followed truce and peace processes on the TV news, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually stopped to think about the complexities of these processes before. I guess I used to just think that everyone wanted peace, and the peace was worked out and the war was over. Easy as that.

In Kosovo I think I saw some of the realities of a truce, as investigated in this film. Yes, it’s peaceful, but that peace is fragile. It’s taking a large, ever-present international peacekeeping force to help keep it there, even twelve years after the war has officially ended. Families have lost loved ones, homes and land and it is going to take much more time and effort to establish true peace there. The current peace feels like ‘false peace’ being forced onto the population. Is it only a matter of time before large-scale trouble is once again reignited?

After watching the film I hope people leave with a better understanding of how complicated it is not just to make peace, but also to keep peace. Certainly I have. But I also have a higher regard for those that work in the field such as the interviewees in the film, those people who are at grass roots level, working in danger zones – for that is what they are.

MATTHEW NORMAN, DIRECTOR/EDITOR

Richard and IWM London staff with characters from the family storytelling sessions

I have had the most amazing weekends at the Imperial War Museum North and IWM London this month, working with families delivering our new story as part of ‘Build the Truce’. My brief as a writer and storyteller was to create a piece which could explain about conflict and truce for a family audience. Given the freedom to choose how I approached the challenge by Catherine Roberts who commissioned the piece I chose slugs and snails. A simple story of how conflict can escalate and become war, told from the perspective of the two main characters: Sadie and Silas, a slug and a snail who point out to the adults how ridiculous it is that they are in conflict when they are so similar – separated mainly by only a shell. They encourage their elders to declare a truce. Told by myself and the IWM learning teams in both Manchester and London, this has been a fabulously creative and rewarding experience. Feedback from parents and grandparents has been excellent, it was really gratifying to see them all having fun as well as understanding the concept of truce.

Richard O’Neill, writer and storyteller

Delighted to hear visitors have been interested in Build the Truce’s film and touchscreens at IWM London, if you have been to the display let us know your thoughts.

Belfast mural reflects the peace process: Nothing about us, without us, is for us

Build the Truce public programmes 2012 begin on July 24 as we open a new audiovisual display at IWM London

A short creative film inspired by people living and working in the aftermath of conflict takes it soundtrack from interviews with civilians, ex-combatants  and aid workers. They have witnessed conflict and truce in Iraq, Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, El Salvador and Kosovo.

The interviews share their perspectives on how we move away from, or towards, peace. They challenge our ideas about truce Film and images remind us that the landscape of truce can  feature devastation and inspiration.

Touchscreens on either side of this room feature more interview extracts and information about the post-conflict zones they describe. We’ll be adding more sound and video clips to this blog between now and September, and updating you on Build the Truce displays and events.

Freedom from Torture is the only organisation in the UK dedicated solely to the treatment of torture survivors. It provides medical consultation, forensic documentation of torture, psychological therapies and practical help for people who have survived the most horrific abuses of human rights. In its 25 years, Freedom from Torture has received referrals for over 50,000 people and has opened treatment centres in five major cities to meet the needs of torture survivors dispersed around the UK. Last year, almost 150 people from nearly 40 different countries were referred to Freedom from Torture’s North West centre in Manchester for help. For more information visit www.freedomfromtorture.org

On Sunday 18 September Catharine Hardy will deliver a short to IWM North visitors as part of the Working for Peace Expo. She says,

“My role is that of a volunteer member of the NW Supporters’ Group for Freedom from Torture. Our remit is to help raise money and people’s awareness of issues of concern regarding survivors of torture, and also asylum seekers and refugees. This may either be to do specifically with problems resulting from torture – or more general issues e.g. problems of exile, issues concerning the UK Border Agency, destitution. W e are also planning to become more involved in campaigning in the future”.

Catharine’s colleague, Regional Fundraiser Alice Nicolay, will be on hand at IWM North on Monday 19 September to explain the work of the organisation.

December 10 is Human Rights Day. In 2011 you watched as people around the world stood up for their rights and their freedom. Maybe you did too.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights belongs to all of us, and was the world’s international response to the shared horror of the Second World War. It sets out, in 30 separate articles, the promise made by the international community to the people of the world: to respect and protect humanity through a commitment to defending  basic, human rights.

Reading the articles is an incredible reminder of what ‘human rights’ really means, and how fragile they are. We’ll be uploading the articles over the next few days but you can read them in full at the UN website, where there’s plenty of info about Human Rights Day and how to celebrate it. There are also links to amazing media clips, reminding us how social media and technology can play a part in supporting and defending human rights. The clip embedded here shows young people who used their blogs to tell the world, through the Arab Spring of 2011, that it was changing.

We’ve had great support from   the HCRI over the last year or two. We’ve interviewed several members of staff and postgrad students with firsthand experience of humanitarian crisis and conflict – their stories will add new dimensions to our archives and future exhibitions (updates coming soon on our new Truce displays, which are co-curated by HCRI’s Dr Tim Jacoby).